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Topic: Mini Swarm (Read 1733 times)

Does anyone have any thoughts about succeeding with very small swarms?

I have seven hives, all re-queened three weeks ago.

During the morning I noticed increased numbers of bees flying around the hives & went over for a look expecting the usual orientation flights that emerge from them on a regular basis. It had the look of a swarm but it didn't appear to be issuing from one of my hives. After a few minutes I noticed a fist sized swarm in a red cedar tree nearby.

All of my hives were queen-right this morning with the exception of one (I gave them a frame of young brood) & showing no signs of swarming. (Three of them swarmed in early September hence the requeening). I am assuming that it is an an afterswarm from a feral hive.

My only nucleus hive was being used so I had no choice but to put them into an 8 F/D super. I put in a drawn comb that had a little capped honey and the balance of the frames were foundation.

When I dropped them into the hive they left immediately & went back to where the swarm landed. I removed the drawn comb & tried again. They left two more times until I decided to put a wire excluder between the bottom board & the super. The bees flew around for 1/2 an hour until they finally gave up & returned to the queen.

I would have liked to give them some brood but I didn't want to waste a good frame of brood on such a tiny swarm of unknown origin.

My thoughts are that I'll let them settle in for a day then return the drawn comb to give them a bit of a start.

I'm looking forward to the challenge of succeeding with such a small swarm.

Hello again. Some of you may be interested how this swarm is going. I brought it back to my property last night after 14 days at a friends property on the other side of the mountain. They are sitting on the deck at the side of my house where I can observe them at least until they hopefully fill an 8 frame brood box.

The queen is laying and they have managed a couple of patches of sealed brood on both sides of the comb about the size of a 50 cent piece. Larvae & eggs are radiating out from the sealed brood which is pleasing. Assuming that the queen started laying on day I hived them I should start to see emerging bees next weekend.

The queen is dark & small compared to my recently introduced Italians which I assume is due to her questionable breeding & limited egg laying at the moment.

Putting the drawn comb in with a bit of sealed honey has been a positive step for them. They are bringing in a little bit of honey despite there not being much around here at the moment.

I have thought about shaking off a few bees from the brood chamber of one of my stronger hives & dropping them in with them however I am wary of disease from an unknown swarm should field bees return to my hive. They seem to be going alright so I am keen to just see how they go.

I noticed that no one has replied as of yet so i thought i'd have a look at this for you... small swarms are hard - if the weather is good, there are enough foraging/nurse bees, and your queen is actively laying then you stand a good chance. They will need a lot of support throughout though and the easiest way of doing this is by doing two things:

1) Ensuring they have enough stores which you have done by including the frame of honey. Normally a feeder would be the way to go but a frame of stores is the best way if you have resources available. Don't forget the importance of pollen - if they don't have an abundance then the brood rearing capacity will be hindered.2) The other essential is bees - you need them for nursing, foraging and hive heat! Where you're located i can't imagine night time temperatures would be too much of an issue but the easiest way to make sure you have enough bees is to take a frame of capped brood with all of the bees attached, give it a heavy smoking or a spray with sugar syrup and put it in the hive. The best way of doing that would be to keep it seperated from the main cluster by a frame or two to allow the bees to get used to each other. Just make sure you don't have the queen on there from the hive that you took the frame of brood/bees from.

Strange, I just had a very tiny swarm at my hives, couldn't see where it came from. Tried to put it in a nuc box but they left again. The next day saw them swarming again, and they landed high up in a tree. Now, a few days later there are two really tiny seperate clusters setting up on a tree and a shrub.I thought maybe it's a queen getting kicked out for a supercedure and a few bees following along?

Thanks for your input. I'll take your advice & dig out a frame of brood for them. One of my strong doubles won't miss one. I'm going to be in Sydney during the week & I'll pick up a nucleus hive to put them in so they they aren't rattling around in an 8 frame super. You're right about the mild temperatures here however we really haven't had any warm weather yet & the nights are still on the cool side. I put a telescopic lid on them when I brought them home to conserve some heat.

Culz, I don't know why but this lot were determined not to stay. I have had swarms take off on me before & I think I'll use the queen excluder method more regularly in future. There is nothing worse than watching a swarm take off to a higher spot after you have just spent 1/2 an hour getting them into a box.